Bringing Hope and Education To the Reservation

Tribal Colleges Grapple With Challenges of Success

By STEVEN A. HOLMES

Published: August 3, 1997

CROW AGENCY, Mont.—
Two years ago, Danetta Jane Holds, a Crow Indian, tried to help her 15-year-old son with his algebra homework and discovered to her horror that she couldn't do it. This abrupt affirmation of her educational shortcomings convinced Ms. Holds, who never went beyond high school, that it was time to finally get a college degree.

Daunted by the prospect of traveling 65 miles to the nearest four-year college in Billings and what she saw as an alien and not very friendly white world, Ms. Holds enrolled at Little Big Horn College, a two-year community college on the sprawling Crow Reservation in south central Montana.

''There are no strangers here,'' she said. ''I got married when I was pretty young, so I've never actually been any place else. So it's kind of scary to go other places. I'd rather stay here. This is my sanctuary, the Crow reservation.''

Ms. Holds's reasoning is shared by thousands of Indian students and helps to explain the explosive growth in recent decades of tribal colleges, which are chartered by their tribes and based on remote reservations primarily in the West, where most Indians live.

Many of the tribal colleges were founded because a number of Indian educators became concerned about the high dropout rates for Indian college students. Studies in the 1970's indicated that about 70 percent of Indian students quit college before graduating from traditional four-year schools, and at many institutions, the dropout rate was more than 90 percent.

Indian leaders blame racism, a lack of sensitivity among authorities at mainstream colleges and the poor preparation of many Indian students who attend high school on reservations. But they acknowledge that cultural considerations play a part, especially for some close-knit tribes like the Crow. Many educators involved in the founding of tribal colleges believed that the answer was a system of colleges on the reservations that would grant degrees or ease the transition from reservation life to mainstream schools.

Since 1968, when the Navajo tribe established Navajo Community College in Tsaile, Ariz., the number of colleges chartered by Indian tribes and run by Indian administrators has increased to 27. The number of full- and part-time students attending these colleges and three others run directly by the Federal Government has more than doubled since 1989, to about 25,000 from 10,000.

Tribal colleges are now among the bright spots on Indian reservations, which, despite the emergence of casino gambling, remain some of the poorest areas in the United States, with an overall unemployment rate of 49 percent.

In a May report, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching said that tribal colleges had ''taken on a breathtaking array of responsibilities'' and that with each passing year, they ''prove their worth to Indian communities and the nation.''

Yet tribal colleges are struggling financially. Unlike other community colleges in the country, they receive no funding from state and local governments, which view the colleges as Federal entities, because they are usually on Indian reservations. And because they have to keep their tuitions low, student fees cannot be counted on to finance the colleges. Legislation passed in 1978 authorizes a lump sum payment of Federal aid that translates to about $5,820 per Indian student. But Congress has never actually given the colleges that much money. Federal aid has also not kept pace with the growth in enrollment and is currently about $2,900 per student.

''That's our number-one problem and our number-one challenge,'' said Gerald (Carty) Monette, president of Turtle Mountain Community College in Belcourt, N.D., which is associated with the Chippewa tribe. ''Our funding is disastrous.''

Some college officials believe the financial situation is about to get worse. In addition to granting associate's degrees, the colleges offer remedial courses and general equivalency diplomas.

In coming years, administrators fear that their campuses will be swamped by untrained and out-of-work Indians who have been forced off the welfare rolls by recent Federal legislation.

''Many individuals are not employable,'' Mr. Monette said. ''Most don't have skills to go out to find a job and keep it. But they have to do something, and most will go to places like the tribal colleges.''

The financial fragility -- and resourcefulness -- of many tribal colleges can be seen at Little Big Horn. A tiny school of about 200 students, Little Big Horn is tucked away on the 2.2-million-acre Crow Reservation. The campus consists of a few trailers and a former gymnasium given to the college by the tribal government.

The buildings have been expanded and renovated by carpentry and building trades students as their academic projects. Strapped for cash, administrators are paying the salaries of 4 of the school's 18 instructors through one- or two-year grants from private foundations until the school is sure there is enough student interest in these teachers' courses to pay them directly from the college's budget.